•It's twenty seconds 'til the last call, going "hey hey hey hey hey hey hey," lie down, y'know it's easy like we did all summer long.•
|PLUTO|
•••
One day of work.
One fucking day...
The day started well, Epic offered to switch for the first day, to give Pluto the 'easy job' at the desk. Pluto being blind to this tomfoolery, accepted. How wrong he were.
The desk job was hell. Literal hell.
Pluto didn't even know how Epic managed it and managed to seem so laid back too.
6:30 in the fucking morning, Pluto was bombarded with a struggling psychopath and a weird looking skeleton with a speech impediment.
"T-t-t-his t-t-thing es-c-c-caped," a black boned skeleton complained, shaking as he held onto the collar of a very very colorful skeleton's shirt.
"Uh. Name and room?" Pluto asked, stand up to look at the skeleton dropped at the bottom of the desk. He was curled up, clutching broken glasses in a sad way, it really was a pitiful sight.
"Fr-r-resh, room 4-4-420, don't f-f-fucking let-t-t Deccans back-k-k in." The skeleton brushed his hands off and left without a word, leaving the other skeleton, Fresh. Pluto was left aghast.
Pluto glanced to the computer, adjusting his own glasses, there was no room 420. There was only 20 rooms in total.
"Uh, Fresh- is that your name? Can you tell me the number of your room?" He asked, Fresh just sat there.
That was.. weird.
When Pluto tried to grab his attention, the skeleton stood very suddenly, towering over him, menacingly in retrospect.
"Howdy broseph," the skeleton spoke, normally, Pluto didn't know why he was expecting something eldritch instead, but boy did those words bring back memories.
"Hiya, is your name Fresh?" Pluto asked, grabbing a pen and clipboard to fill out the admissions forms for new patients.
"You could say that, what's your name my totally radical broski?" Fresh?? Asked and Pluto almost didn't want to give him his name, likely due to the fact he felt like Fresh would steal his identity akin to the fae, "Where's 'memer' chicken dude?"
"I'm Pluto, I'm working the desk job today, and I don't know who this 'memer chicken dude is?" Pluto tapped the pen against the clipboard impatiently, while trying to remain sane.
The amount of colors on Fresh's hat alone was a colorful laser beam designed to burn a permanent hole in the back of Pluto's mind, while in normal circumstances he would've been overjoyed, something about Fresh was a bit... Uncanny Valley.
He almost expected his joints to move in the opposite direction.
"Whassits name, Epic!!" Fresh suddenly shouted, remembering Epic's name suddenly, Pluto nodded.
"We swapped places for the day, he's taking care of the patients, probably in the common room," Pluto stood up, gesturing to the left wing of the building, or left to Fresh, right to Pluto.
"Take me to him," Fresh put simply, and it felt like a threat.
"Uh yeah sure?" Pluto didn't feel like he had a choice in this situation, uncomfortable but perplexed, he ventured on, taking Fresh to the door of the common room, sliding in a keycard to unlock the door.
"Thanks broski," Fresh spoke as he stepped into the room, Pluto shortly behind.
Epic jumped to Pluto's side, teleportation perhaps? Either way he looked a bit astonished, "This skeleton wanted to know where you were," Pluto gestures to Fresh beside him, whose omnipresent grin seemed to grow wider.
"Ah okay, can you take over a patient for me? The other nurses can handle the rest, just this guy is a bit of a special case," Epic gestured to a skeleton curled up in a corner with especially large clothing.
"Can I know what I'm dealing with? Violent? Escape artist?" Pluto stared at the skeleton a moment, hoping that this job would be better than the purgatory that was the desk.
"Oh no, he's been involuntarily regressed for years, he's not getting out of here anytime soon," Epic looked a little sad at that sentiment, Pluto didn't know how to feel, "Just be nice to him bruh, he's got self destructive tendencies and our therapy isn't helping him, his name is Asy."
"Yeah okay, I hope I can manage," Pluto was questioning if his own sentence.
"I'll go take our buddy out here to go chat, I'll come get you when I'm done bruh," Epic gave a nod before turning to go take Fresh away from the rest of the patients.
Pluto turned to Asy, managing a small smile for the man, "Hi, I'm Pluto. I hope you don't mind I'll be watching you until Epic gets back," Asy looked up, eyelights clouded, Pluto could tell almost immediately he was dissociating.
"H-Hi.." Asy's eyes focused, not on Pluto, but on something behind him, making expressions based on something Pluto couldn't hear, "Uh.. 'm Asy.."
"Nice to meet you Asy," the two fell into the silence, Pluto examining Asy's body language for a bit, recognizing quite a few different actions the guy made.
Asy was jittery, dressed in over-sized clothing, covered in cuts and bruises healing slowly, Pluto saw the scars on his wrists and visibly winced, other than that Asy appeared fine, he even sported a slight smile briefly as he made very intense eye-contact with the wall right behind Pluto's head, which was kind of uncomfortable for Pluto but he remained in place, not wanting to upset the guy.
"Paps thinks you're cool," Asy suddenly blurted, turning to Pluto, who looked around confusedly for quite a moment before realizing.
"Paps is your imaginary friend or...?" Pluto asked and Asy looked like he was about to cry, Pluto panicked.
"Paps is real.." He let out a hiccuping sob, burying his head in his hands. Pluto didn't know if he was legally allowed to offer him a comforting hug, he didn't know if he was obligated to either.
"Paps is real. I'll take your word for it," Pluto tried to amend, turning to the door and back to Asy for a good ten seconds, hoping Epic would swoop in and help him undo the mistake he made.
"Oh Asy.." a voice spoke softly, Pluto turned to a skeleton with a guest badge and a bright red scarf, said skeleton walked to Asy and patted his head as he leaned onto the skeleton's chest, crying quietly.
Another skeleton stood nearby, someone that he could've sworn was the grim reaper. Dressed in all black flowing robes stood another skeleton with a guest badge, though this time the skeleton had wings.
"What's wrong Asy?" The second skeleton asked, hovering away from the group like they were scared to interact.
"P-paps is real..!" Asy muttered, sounding almost questioning of his words, Pluto wanted to curl inwards, this was for the most part his fault.
"Of course Paps is real Az, right Gen?" The dark robed skeleton referred to the red scarfed skeleton.
"Of course," the red scarfed skeleton, 'Gen' responded in less than a second, without hesitation.
Pluto thought briefly about how nice it would be for someone to treat him like that, though he supposed that was the job of a parent or friend, neither of which Pluto actually had. He did have Epic as his silly coworker though.
Once Asy was quelled, the two skeletons turned to Pluto, "Where's Epic?" The dark robed skeleton almost looked worried as 'Gen' asked Pluto.
"Oh uh he's taking care of another patient I think?? Fresh was his name," He responded a bit unsure, Asy was hugging 'Gen' still sniffling.
"That thing.." One skeleton looked almost mad, Pluto kinda just sat there.
"I don't know if I'm allowed to let you call a future patient that?" Pluto accepted his fate. Kind of ironic, considering he was in the presence of the god of death, (one of them, at least) though he didn't know that.
"We're donors for the facility, they can't do a thing about it," The skeleton paused, "By the way, I don't believe we met, I'm Geno," Geno held out his hand, offering it to Pluto. Pluto hesitated before fistbumping Geno's open hand instead.
"How do you guys know Asy?" Pluto questioned, before realizing he forgot the introduction of the other skeleton, "Sorry, what's your name?"
"No need for apologies, 'm Reaper," Reaper smiled lightly, a kind of thing that held no meaning behind it, Pluto found himself smiling a little just for the sake of it, "I'd offer you my hand but I don't want 'cha to die."
"Reaper!" Geno gave him a sharp jab in the ribs, almost bowling Reaper over, "He's just joking."
"No, I'm not," Reaper quickly corrected, smiling, "Countless people have died when they touched me."
"What?" Pluto was a bit confused to say the least, but better off he didn't question it, "Back to my question, how do you guys know Asy?"
"We're his friends, or well, little Az's parents," Geno then quickly amended it, "Not biologically."
"Ah I see, found family-," Pluto was interrupted. Epic stood at the door, holding a thumb up.
"Sorry 'bout the wait bruh, you can take the desk back," Pluto wanted to curl in on himself.
"Yeah yeah, I got it," He stood, walking to the door, Asy waved at him.
"Bye bye new friend!"
A few hours passed where Pluto was uninterrupted, he spent that time eating a goddamn mountains worth of cheez-its and scrolling Fumblr.
"Yo," a voice spoke. A skeleton stood behind the counter, having appeared out of thin air almost. Pluto fumbled his phone to the floor before swiftly snatching it up again.
"Whatcha here for?" He asked, looking at the skeleton, wearing a grey-ish blue hoodie.
"Imma guest, you should probably wait, my angry buddies shoutin' at someone outside," Pluto scrambled to find the guest clipboard as the skeleton talked, "By the way, where's Epic?"
Apparently Epic was well known in this place, or perhaps in the skeleton groups of the world? Either way, yet another skeleton walked into the room and Pluto almost wanted to sigh with dread. It was him. The guy that compared him to a dog, after yelling at him about mail.
"Holy fuck it's you space boy!" The skeleton burst into hearty laughter and Pluto was not amused to say the least.
"Yeah yeah, names so I can check you in," He asked, looking over the paperwork, there was a careful blank where the person you were trying to see went, "Who're you trying to see too."
"I'm S- Classic, my buddies Fell, we're here to see Asy," Classic, the first skeleton, spoke, Pluto gave a short hum when he heard that they were here to see Asy.
"Asy gets a lot of visitors," Pluto thought aloud, scribbling in the neccesary information and giving them the guest tags to send them away. Classic nodded appreciatively.
"So how'd you get a job here, eh space boy?" Fell asked and Pluto just exhaled trying to control himself. He didn't want to deal with Fell being mean to him or well, calling him that infernal nickname.
"That's what I was at the post office for yesterday, I was looking for a job and they happened to hire me on the spot," Pluto said more under his breath, "Which tells you a lot about how the place is run."
"I know right, 'buncha fuck-all corporate shitbags, their protocols make it a lot worse for Asy," Fell paused, crossing his arms and almost pouting in a way, "I wanted to apologize to you.. for yesterday, I was kinda shitty, sorry."
"You're apologizing? Your less mean than I thought," Pluto spoke and Fell looked like he had an awful retort to that but he scurried off before he said something he regretted.
Pluto just sighed. What a skele-ton of a day he just had.
Nope nope. Not doing this. Fuck you writer.